Cold Hard Truth

by Anne Greenwood Brown

  Emmie didn’t curse, but she could feel the word, round and salty, in her mouth. It wasn’t her mom who’d told them where to find her, how to get in touch. It had been Dan all along.

  “Why?” she asked, but Dan refused to look at her. A line of muscle tensed in his jaw. She turned toward Frankie. “Was Angie’s text a lie too?”

  “Some girls are good little girls and do what they’re told,” Frankie said.

  Nick got behind the wheel and started the engine. “Time to go home, Pigeon.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  UNEXPECTED

  “Great work today, guys. Great work. But it’s time to wrap up,” Cardigan John said, while shuffling his stack of papers into a neat, trim pile.

  “Why so early?” Jesse asked.

  “I’ve got a meeting today at five. Didn’t I mention this last week?” John glanced around the room. Max tended to space out from time to time when John was talking. Maybe he’d told them, and he’d missed it. But by the looks on everyone else’s faces, this was coming as news to everyone.

  “Sorry,” John said. “I meant to tell you. If you’re getting picked up by a parent, call them now.”

  John walked to his desk and grabbed his sweater off the back of his chair. The guys started pulling phones out of their back pockets. “So we’re good?” Max asked. “I can go?”

  “Yeah, you can go. See you next week, Max.”

  And Max was out the door. It was like getting an unexpected gift, and it wasn’t even his birthday! He couldn’t wait to see the look on Emmie’s face when he came out twenty minutes early. The hallway was long, but it was a straight shot. He expected to see her in the chair at the end of it, but she wasn’t there.

  Max walked briskly toward the door. Maybe she’d stepped into the bathroom. Her book was on the floor by the chair, lying in a way that bent several of the pages back. It gave him an unsettled feeling in his stomach. He looked up and through the big picture window just as a car pulled out of the alleyway across the street. Max didn’t notice who was driving, but he noticed the junker car. Mainly because it was loud. The muffler was broken. But also because he recognized it from before. The last time he’d seen it was at the ice rink. That Angie girl had driven it away after he’d practically attacked her.

  Max checked his phone, but there was no text from Emmie, and he had barely any battery life left. A prickly feeling ran the length of Max’s neck, leaving a cold little shiver in his arms. He fought back his instincts and ignored the tremble in his little finger. John had taught him a few things, and Max did not find it difficult to piece together a plausible reason why Emmie would have left.

  Maybe Angie had called Emmie. Maybe she’d wanted to talk. Emmie would have been obliging, as always. She knew he wouldn’t be out of class for another half hour. They’d gone to talk privately in the girl’s car, then Emmie would be back. But why would they need to drive away, and why didn’t she let him know she was leaving? Maybe they were going to get a Coke at the Burger King down the street. She’d be right back. That was it. That was all.

  Max’s fingers twitched, and every instinct in him coiled into a tight spiral, ready to spring. But he was getting better at loosening the tension, recognizing the trigger and calming himself. John, it turned out, knew his stuff. The classes were actually making a difference. Max took two deep cleansing breaths and settled into the chair to wait. He smoothed out the pages in Emmie’s book and checked out what she was reading.

  He was a little shocked by how steamy it was. Is this what girls read?

  The other guys started to file out of John’s office and come down the hall. A few of them already had rides waiting, and they left. A few of them hung out in the lobby, watching through the window for their rides to show up.

  “What are you still doing here?” Jesse asked.

  “Waiting for my girlfriend to get back so we can go out to dinner.”

  Jesse glanced behind him at the bathroom, then back at Max. “Has she been in there a long time? Maybe she snuck out the window. If I had to go out with you, that’s what I’d do.”

  “You’re hilarious.”

  “I know. Hey, there’s my ride. Smell you later, man.”

  “Uh-huh.” Max opened the book again and tried to concentrate on the words on the page, but his gut was turning. He tried Emmie’s number, but her phone was turned off. Yeah, that made sense. She’d give Angie her full attention, then she’d be back.

  But when five o’clock hit, then five-o-five…Max was losing confidence in his hypothesis.

  His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he gave a sigh of relief. But when he pulled it out, it wasn’t a number he recognized. “Hello?”

  “Max?” It was a man’s voice and only vaguely familiar.

  “Yeah?” Max’s phone beeped. He had less than five percent battery left.

  “Max, it’s Mr. O’Brien. Emmie’s dad.”

  “Is she okay?” Max asked.

  There was a pause on the other end. Then. “Isn’t she with you?”

  “No. I mean, yeah. But she took off with a girlfriend while I was in…class. I thought she’d be back by now because we have dinner reservations.”

  The silence on the other end made Max’s stomach turn.

  “I’d hoped she was with you,” Mr. O’Brien said. “It took a while for Marissa to track down your number for me. Emmie’s not picking up, and I need you to bring her home. Right away.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  There was silence on the line, and Max had to repeat his question, this time more insistently. Mr. O’Brien answered with “What do you know about Nick Peters?”

  Max felt his heart stutter. “Enough.”

  “His attorney brought a motion for a new trial Monday morning. The judge granted it today. Nick’s been released on bail, which someone has posted.”

  “What? Why?” Max’s head began to whirl. He knew that girl’s car had something to do with what Mr. O’Brien was telling him, but he couldn’t get the pieces to fit together quickly enough.

  “Emmie’s mother…at least I think…I don’t have time to get into it right now,” Mr. O’Brien said. “I need to find my daughter.”

  “She’s with another girl who used to hang out with Nick.”

  “Angie?”

  Max spun around, one hand in his hair. “Yeah. Yeah. She’s driving an old junker. Black, I think. Or dark blue? Rusty. No muffler. They went west on Lake Street about”—Max checked the time on his phone—“a half hour ago. I had no idea. Where do you think she is?”

  Max punished himself mentally. He should have trusted his instincts. He’d wasted thirty minutes. What kind of trouble was Emmie in?

  “I’ll alert the police. You go home. Let me know if she calls you.” Mr. O’Brien hung up abruptly without saying anything more.

  Max glanced down at his screen. It had gone black, and his phone was powering down, the battery dead. Emmie wouldn’t be calling him. But there was no way he was going home. He’d had the chance to fix things, and he’d let it drive away. Max slipped his phone into his pocket and ran for his jeep. He’d made a lot of mistakes in his life, but one thing was for sure: Max Shepherd never made the same one twice.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  OLD BUSINESS

  Nick zigzagged through town, taking lefts, then rights down oneway streets. Emmie didn’t have to ask where they were going. Nick’s apartment over the Gold Pedal Bike Shop wasn’t that far from the office building where Max still sat, probably watching the clock, waiting to take her to dinner.

  Emmie wrapped her fingers around the door latch and jerked. Locked. She glanced at Nick, and the corners of his mouth twitched. She couldn’t understand what he meant by taking her like this, but she was having a harder time thinking about why Dan was here. What did Nick have on him? Did Dan owe him money? It wasn’t like she could turn around and ask him. But if Dan had been the one to give her up, that meant her mom hadn’t. It was enough to keep Emmie’s mind steady as s
he watched Nick and tried to figure out what to do.

  He looked the same as she remembered. Tall, tightly muscled. He’d aged, seeming older now than his twenty-seven years. She tried to read his mood. She tried to judge how afraid she should be. Did he only mean to scare her? Or was it something worse? His face gave nothing away, and Emmie wondered how she was going to get herself back to Max. She was struck by the sudden, irrational fear that she was never going to get the chance to try Thai food.

  Once again, Emmie tested the door latch. She had no qualms about throwing herself out of a moving car. Still locked.

  After a few minutes, they passed the site where the TV repair shop burned down the year before. It was under construction now with several shovels leaning up against a chain-link fence. Emmie braced herself against the dash as she prepared for Nick to make a quick right-hand turn. She caught sight of the familiar Gold Pedal logo in the storefront as he pulled into the driveway between it and the Somali grocery store next door. Its blue awning snapped in the wind, distorting its advertisements for phone cards, ATM, fresh meats.

  Frankie and Jimmy got out while Nick dug in his pocket for something. The sunlight hit Frankie’s closely shorn blond hair, making him look practically bald. Jimmy’s dark eyebrows lowered under the flat bill of his cap as he glanced warily up and down the sidewalk.

  Emmie stayed in her seat. She couldn’t make a run for it. They’d catch her. Nothing good was going to come from getting out of this car. She looked behind her toward Dan. Neither of them spoke, her plea for help in her eyes, and his apology in his.

  Nick tossed a plastic bag filled with crystal meth onto the back seat and exited the car.

  Dan looked at it lying there on the seat beside him, his lip curled in disgust. For a second, Emmie thought he meant to refuse it, but then he shoved it into his coat pocket, flung open the car door, and made a hasty retreat across the street.

  “Judas!” she yelled after him. “You bastard!”

  Frankie wrenched open Emmie’s car door, and she felt Nick’s hand on her shoulder. She turned to face them and braced one foot on either side of the doorframe, refusing to be moved. It didn’t matter in the end. She was no physical match for Nick.

  “Nick. Look at me,” she said. “It’s me. Emmie. You know me.”

  Nick grabbed Emmie around the waist and slung her over his shoulder, carrying her up the metal fire escape that was mounted to the outside of the building. He acted as if she was nothing more than this week’s groceries. She screamed and beat on his back, but she didn’t really expect anyone to come to her rescue. Not in this neighborhood.

  The metal stairs pulled and strained against the bolts that held them to the brick wall, and the world seemed to wobble as Emmie stared down at the ground that was pulling farther and farther away from her.

  When they got to the top, Nick opened the door, and the familiar odor of stale beer, cigarette smoke, and burned chemicals assaulted her senses. Nick set Emmie on her feet and shoved her inside the apartment she used to call home. She staggered backward with the momentum and threw her hands out in front of her as if that would provide her some defense. “Nick. Just listen.”

  Nick smiled and locked the door after Jimmy and Frankie came in behind him.

  “What’s going on?” Angie asked as she walked into the living room from the adjacent bedroom. Her hair fell across her face. Her army jacket hung limply off her shoulders, almost as if she didn’t have any shoulders at all.

  When she and Emmie looked at each other, their faces mirrored the same terror. Angie’s face was already swollen, and there was a cut at the corner of her mouth, slightly scabbed over.

  “Emmie?” she said. “What happened?” Then to Nick, “Why is she here?”

  “Don’t be such an idiot,” Frankie said, walking farther into the room, toward the kitchen at the back.

  Nick stepped between Emmie and Angie, interfering with their eye contact. He faced Emmie but spoke to Angie. “Pigeon’s here because she’s a narc.”

  His hand pulled back, then released, slapping Emmie across the cheek and eye. Emmie winced as her head spun sideways. She felt as though her eye was going to explode. Why did he always have to hit her like that?

  “You were my girl,” Nick said. Did Emmie detect a hint of sadness in his voice?

  “I was. I am,” she said.

  Nick shoved her, and Emmie’s heel caught on the steamer-trunk coffee table. She nearly toppled over, but Nick caught her by the coat sleeve and kept her on her feet.

  “You know what happens when someone turns on me?” Nick landed another slap across Emmie’s face. The stinging burn sent shock waves through her body, and she dropped to her hands and knees. Blindly, she started crawling for the door. She had to get out. She had to get away from here.

  Emmie didn’t cry, but Angie did. “What are you going to do to her? Let her go!” Angie demanded, but both girls knew they were useless words. “Please!”

  Nick grabbed Emmie by her hair and pulled her to standing. She felt her hair rip from the roots, but she bit down on her tongue. She wouldn’t beg, and he wouldn’t have the satisfaction of knowing how much he hurt her.

  “I’m sitting in prison, and you’re running around high school like some brainless cheerleader. Going to parties, hanging out with a bunch of hockey assholes. That’s not you, Pigeon.” His voice was calm. Almost bored.

  Emmie forgot her resolution to stay quiet. “How…?” Then she remembered Dan. He’d told Nick about Max. Would they go after Max now too? Was Dan so far gone that he’d put his job at risk?

  Nick yanked Emmie’s coat off her shoulders, and his gaze descended again. “You’ve grown up some since the last time I saw you.” He palmed her breast. Frankie and Jimmy laughed. Bile crawled up Emmie’s throat, and she swallowed it back down.

  “How can you tell under that sweater?” Jimmy asked. Emmie bit her tongue to keep from screaming. More laughter, this time from Frankie, who raked his dirty fingernails over his stubbly head.

  “Stop it!” Angie yelled. “Just stop!”

  She started toward Emmie, but Frankie grabbed Angie and threw her up against the wall. “Mind your own business, Ang.”

  Emmie turned her head as Nick came in closer, stroking the side of her neck with the backs of his fingers, his mouth hovering near the corner of hers. Emmie could see Angie, still pressed against the wall, Frankie’s hands around her throat.

  Angie twisted, trying to break free, but Frankie grabbed her by the hair. “Emmie!” she cried out.

  “Keep your bitch in line,” Nick said quietly. Then he grabbed Emmie by the shoulders and walked her backward across the living room. He was moving her so fast that she struggled to keep her feet under her. Then Nick gave her a quick shove, and she was airborne. No. No. Not again.

  A second later, Emmie landed on her back on the dingy blue mattress in the corner of the room. She crawled backward until she was pressed into the corner like a trapped animal. Her arms splayed wide, palms pressed back against the walls. Beyond Nick, Frankie was dragging Angie into another room. Emmie’s skin crawled with the sound of Angie’s screams.

  “Nick,” Emmie said. She kept her voice calm and low. “Nick, you don’t want to do this.” She didn’t want him to touch her. She didn’t want Jimmy watching as Nick touched her.

  When Nick crawled over the top of Emmie, she remembered how deceptively heavy he was. He was crushing her, and his breath was hot on the side of her face. If he’d been drunk, maybe she could get away, but he wasn’t. He was very much in control of his body, and she felt every inch of it along her comparatively tiny frame.

  She put her hands on his shoulders and tried to push him off, but it was no use. He was kissing her neck now, and she thought she was going to throw up. Maybe he’d get off if she vomited on him.

  Nick shifted his weight, unpinning one of Emmie’s legs. And that was when the switch flipped. Never again. She didn’t care whatever else he did to her; she was not going to let th
is bastard use her body again. Not while there was an ounce of fight left in her. She took her opportunity, jerking her knee up and making contact with exactly the right spot. Nick bent at the waist and rolled off her.

  Emmie threw one leg over the edge of the mattress and tried to get off completely, but Jimmy was there in a second, pinning Emmie’s arms to her sides. Emmie thrashed and bit his shoulder.

  “She’s stronger than she looks,” Jimmy said with a laugh. “I like a girl with fight.”

  Nick had gathered himself by then. “You like to fight?” he asked her.

  “Nick,” Emmie said. There were tears in her eyes, and her heart was pounding in her chest, but her voice was firm. “We’re not doing this. It’s not going to make anything better. I don’t know why you’re out, but this isn’t going to help your situation. Whatever it is, we can work something out.”

  Nick stood up. Emmie was now sandwiched between Jimmy and Nick. Her clothes absorbed the sweat from their bodies.

  “You’re not testifying against me again, Ems.” Nick signaled to Jimmy with a nod of his chin. Jimmy suddenly released her and went into the kitchen.

  Even though no one was touching her now, Emmie felt just as bound, just as trapped. “I won’t. I won’t. I’ll say that I don’t remember anything.” She’d promise him anything right now. She would survive.

  Nick smiled knowingly, then smashed his lips against hers. He pushed his tongue into her mouth. He tasted like onions and cigarettes. When he pulled back, Emmie wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

  “That’s right,” he said. “You won’t remember anything.”

  There was a loud thud from the other bedroom, and Angie screamed. Emmie turned her head toward the sound, but Nick took her by the chin and yanked her face back toward his.

  Jimmy came back from the kitchen with a metal spoon that he held level to the floor. He walked gingerly as he carried it to the small table beside the blue mattress. Then he pulled out a syringe from the drawer and sucked up the clear liquid, drawing it slowly into the needle through a small ball of cotton he had dropped in the bowl of the spoon. He then laid it on the table.